Chapter 4: How to Travel With Cunning and Great Skill

With noble hearts and impractical minds, the company sallied forth from Rivendell. Any esteemed readers who now visualise sweeping mountain vistas, perhaps inspired by fine examples of cinematography, are in for a disappointment, though. For fear that the Enemy might use birds as spies, the company only travelled at night. Apparently, it had never yet occurred to the Enemy to use bats as spies, or perhaps it just hadn't occurred to Gandalf that it might occur to the Enemy; in any case the following few weeks were spent in darkness. Eventually, though, they attempted to cross the Misty Mountains at a particularly precarious place. None of the company were kitted out for mountaineering, but at least Boromir thought of taking some firewood.

"You know what would be a great invention?" said Pippin as they trudged through the snow. "Some kind of strong rope strung along a line of masts, and you could use it to pull little seats up the side of the mountain. Or they could even be suspended from the rope. Just think, how great it would be to float up the mountain side!"

"Don't be silly, Pippin," said Merry. "Nobody in Middle-earth has such magic."

"They have magic that makes a river flood on command," muttered Pippin sulkily.

Unsurprisingly, the company was very soon stuck in a snow drift. Boromir urged them to descend from the mountain, but Gandalf encouraged them to lie down in the snow and take a drink of liquor, as this is the recommended procedure in such cases. Several avalanches later, however, even Gandalf had to admit grudgingly – oh, so grudgingly! – that Boromir had been right. The two men employed themselves as snow ploughs, eliciting from Boromir a grumbled comment about bodies having to serve where heads had failed. Elf, dwarf, pony, wizard, Merry, Pippin and Sam followed in their wake.

"And why am I always getting rescued last?" asked Frodo curtly. "You'd think I was the least important member of the Company. I have half a mind just to stay up here."

"If you disagree with the leadership's decisions," said Aragorn as he flung Frodo over his shoulder, "you can fill in a complaint form once you're back at Rivendell."

Back at base camp, Gandalf excelled with one of his famous stating-the-obvious quips.

"That was no ordinary blizzard. It would appear that the Redhorn Pass is watched!"

"Who would have thought it?" said Boromir with dripping sarcasm. "Now are we going to go via Rohan?"

Gandalf stroked his beard and hummed and hawed. "No," he said at last. "The Ring should not come too close to Saruman."

"But the Gap of Rohan is easily fifty miles wide!"

"So? We'd have to travel across the land of the horse lords. So, okay, they've been our friends for hundreds of years, but these are dangerous times, and maybe they've turned nasty since we last saw them. We will go through the mines of Moria instead. Nothing to fear there other than a few… well, goblins, and lethal chasms and rock slides and perhaps a prehistoric demon or two…"

Boromir rolled his eyes. "So, let me get this right: We will descend into an orc-infested hell-hole because perhaps our allies in Rohan can be no longer trusted? And why don't we know for sure? Wouldn't this have been a job for those scouts on whose account we delayed our departure for so long? What exactly did they scout out?"

"I am not discussing this with you anymore," replied Gandalf and stomped off.

"Are you not even going to do a risk assessment about this?" Boromir screamed after him. "You total nutcases!"

"Peace, Boromir!" cried Gandalf over his shoulder. "We cannot risk the Rohan road."

"Then why not go south and come up to Minas Tirith from the sea?"

Aragorn laid a hand on Boromir's arm. "That would take a year. We haven't got a year."

"Teacher's pet," hissed Boromir.

oOoOoOo

A little while later in Barad-dûr

"Are you sure you hired enough wargs?" asked the Mouth of Sauron.

"Of course I did," replied Sauron testily. "A great host. They'll make short shrift of that rag-tag band of adventurers."

"How are you going to get the Ring back here, though? Wargs don't carry bags."

"Um." Sauron stared into the Palantir, which failed to provide a snappy comeback. "Stop nagging, will you? Always so negative!"

"Okay, okay. Look here they come now."

"Warg attack! Warg attack!" squealed Sauron. "Get them, get them, pewww, pewww, pewww!"

"Pewww, pewww, pewww? What's that supposed to mean?"

"How should I know? Ha, look at those wargs making short…or perhaps being driven back a little…they'll recover, though…damn, that's another one down…wargs can still win this…wargs can – Don't run, you wusses! Get back in there! Don't you dare let me down! Wargs! Oh, shit, shit, shit…"

"Told you you should have hired more wargs," said the Mouth of Sauron primly.

"Get off my back, will you? Look at that Gandalf, he's just gone and started a forest fire, why don't you go and upbraid him for this environmental vandalism?"

The Palantir went dark.

oOoOoOo

Some time later at the west door of Moria.

"Speak, friend, and enter. Rats, it's password protected."

"No problem," said Gandalf. "I know about two hundred possible passwords for this, each of them with only about a dozen variations. Let me just try until I find the right one."

"That's your plan?" grumbled Boromir. "But taking the coastal route would take too long? All I can say is, I'm glad we don't use your methods in Gondor." He slumped down on a convenient bolder and slowly counted under his breath to calm himself. By the time he had reached 7543, several things happened. Gandalf had given up trial-and-error and to everyone's surprise had applied logic instead, with the result that the door actually opened, however, before anyone could decide whether they were delighted or dismayed about this, Frodo was attacked by a would-be-Cthulu, was rescued as per usual, whereafter everyone hurried into the tunnel, the Cthulu creature slammed and blocked the door behind them and Gandalf immediately began to lament the loss of two trees, never mind that he'd that very day burnt down at least two hundred.

"Talk me through that again," said Merry. "The password was just 'friend'?"

"Yes, in those days they didn't care so much about the strength of their passwords," replied Gandalf with a nostalgic note in his voice. "Nowadays of course it would have to include numbers and capital letter and all that malarkey."

"But shouldn't it then have said Speak quotation mark friend quotation mark and enter, rather than Speak comma friend comma and enter?"

"They were also less pedantic about punctuation. And now let us go. We have several days' march through this mine ahead of us."

"You know what would be a great invention?" said Pippin. "Carts that could go on some kind of fixed path, like if you put down two rails parallel to each other. We could be through this mine in no time!"

"Ah, my dear Pippin," replied Gandalf, "that would be beyond the skills of even the wisest of elves."

"Why, is it harder than making swords that glow in the dark when orcs are near?"

"Hush, I need to find the right path." Gandalf had stopped before a parting in the road. Three tunnels opened up in front of them; one up, one down, one strange. Stroking his beard, Gandalf muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Eenie, meenie, miny, mo" and then pointed at one of the tunnels. "We should take this way; it smells better."

"How is that a sensible criterion?"

"My heart tells me –"

"Perhaps your heart should talk less and listen more," snapped Frodo.

oOoOoOo

Meanwhile in Rivendell

Lindir and Erestor were sitting on a carved stone parapet idly kicking their feet in the wholesome elvish air.

"You know," said Lindir, "I can't help thinking that we didn't really explore all options before the Fellowship set off."

"What do you mean?" replied Erestor. "We did what we could. The evaluation forms were on the whole very positive." Given the gushing comments from the Hobbit Gamgee, Erestor felt he could be forgiven for making no reference to Boromir's form.

"Still. For example, if the whole idea was secrecy, why didn't they dress up? They could have disguised themselves as tinkers or, better still, as a travelling circus. It would have been plausible enough, given the diverse composition of the group, and I know for a fact that Legolas can do all sorts of tricks on the tight-rope. "

"Hm. Perhaps. Come to think of it, it had crossed my mind that they could have travelled much faster if they had taken boats down the Bruinen and then the Gwathlo and then sailed along the coast to South Gondor. That would have had the added bonus of confusing the Enemy about their ultimate destination."

"Well, on the river they may have been more easily spotted."

"Then we should have sent out multiple parties in various directions, to fool any spies of the Enemy and make him divide his forces. And each party could have carried a fake Ring."

Lindir furrowed his exquisite brow. "Wouldn't the servants of the Enemy know which one was the real Ring? Doesn't it have some sort of aura or suchlike? We would have needed to disguise that aura somehow."

"Yes!" Erestor almost jumped into the gorge with excitement. "We should have done that anyway. A magical locket to contain the power of the Ring that would stop the servants of the Enemy from being drawn to it and at the same time protect the Ringbearer from any ill effect! Why didn't we think of that!"

"I don't know. That seems a tricky gadget to make."

"Trickier than a spell that hides the whole valley from the eyes of the Enemy?"

"Oh, well, you know what it's like with Elrond. He needs to be in the right mood, or his spells just don't come off. Oh, there he is now!" Lindir quickly gave himself the air of someone who had not just been bitching about the management. "Master Elrond, we were just talking about how delectable the air is at this time of year."

"I have toothache," said Elrond and walked past.

oOoOoOo

A few days later on the other side of the Misty Mountains

"I suppose that could have gone better," conceded Aragorn. "Especially since Gandalf had all the travellers cheques in his pocket. We need to find a cash machine soon. I think there is one in Lothlorien."

"Is that all you can think of, money?" wailed Pippin through his tears. "We're going to miss Gandalf so much! His battered old hat…"

"…his incessant smoking…" added Sam.

"…his cryptic and long-winded explanations…" chimed in Merry.

"…the way he never listened to any sensible advice…"

"…the time he took to make a decision, any decision…"

"…his pompous smugness…"

"…his, eh, way of bossing people around…"

"…his body odour…"

"His smile!" interrupted Frodo pointedly.

"Ah, yeah, yeah, his smile…"

"Be that as it may," said Aragorn, "we have to get going. We must reach Lothlorien before nightfall, because, well, orcs."

"So now we are travelling in daylight?" asked Gimli.

"Yes, for a little while, until I change my mind again."

They hurried down the mountainside while Legolas was gushing in his descriptions of Lothlorien. "I know they have had some bad reviews on TripAdvisor, but they must have been from trolls. Of course we've not really come at the best time of year…"

"…so, okay, this blindfolding thing is awkward, but it's all part of the experience, isn't it?" he added a little later.

"…and perhaps they could do with some updates to their infrastructure," he acknowledged as the hobbits struggled across the rope bridge.

"…but have you ever seen such trees!" he ended triumphantly when they finally arrived at the city of the Galadrim.

The hobbits had to admit that they hadn't.

"Perhaps some railings, though…" suggested Merry timidly.

"Railings!" sneered Legolas. "Railings are for wimps." And he ran up the winding stair into the tree, taking three steps at a time.

oOoOoOo

Soft mist lay on the waters. The scent of the forest mingled with the clear and wholesome smell of the river. The golden light, seemingly coming from nowhere, gave a magical glow to the grass along the shore. From under the boughs of the forest, where the river entered the meadow as through a green archway, emerged a magnificent boat in the shape of a swan. White it shone, pristine and otherworldly. Soundlessly it glided along, while enchanting music drifted through the morning air.

"Ooops," said Galadriel suddenly. A ripple of vexation passed over her perfect brow.

"What now?" said Celeborn. "I mean, what distresses you, vanimelda?"

"I forgot to prepare a gift for the dwarf. I thought I had ticked off everyone on the list, but I must have missed a line."

"So what," replied Celeborn. "He should count himself lucky that we fed and housed him for four weeks. Even if he'd booked that through Airbnb, it would have cost him a small fortune. Just send him packing."

"No, no, this simply won't do," said Galadriel. "This would be a most awkward time for a diplomatic Incident. I will have to keep all the gifts I prepared for the other members of the Fellowship. Quick, hide them under the bench!"

"There's no need for that, vanimelda. Just ask him to name the gift he would like."

"That's some risk to take!"

"Not at all. People who are invited to choose their own gift are always too embarrassed to name anything valuable. Out of sheer politeness, they pick something ridiculously minor. Mark my word, you tell him to choose anything he wants from this entire realm and he'll ask for a mallorn leaf or a pebble from the River Nimrodel or some such sentimental nonsense."

"If you're sure…"

"Trust me; it'll work."

oOoOoOo

Meanwhile in Barad-dûr

"We are rapidly running out of options, boss," said the Mouth of Sauron as he crossed 'balrog' and 'mountain orcs' off his list.

"Ah, but they've lost their queen," replied Sauron.

"What queen?"

"Chess metaphor, Mouthy. The old wizard. Without him, it'll be check mate in no time."

"Yes, but for whom?" mumbled the Mouth of Sauron. He closed his notebook and decided to have a long, hot bath. With extra pine needle extract.

oOoOoOo

Later that day, back at Caras Galadon.

"It was you own idea, Celeborn!"

"Yes, yes, but he wasn't supposed to choose a hair from your head. An actual hair! What does he want with that? What's been going on between the two of you? And incidentally, where were you on Tuesday evening when you came to bed so very late?"

"Don't you dare start this kind of thing again, Celeborn. Don't you dare!"